My daughter has been playing an old MS-DOS game called “The Oregon Trail” (play for free at Internet Archive). Her characters, whom she names “Axel” and “Emily Rose”, are constantly dropping dead from cholera, dysentery, and starvation.

The game warns of meagerrations and that is how things look around our house. It’s been super cold here with negative temps and -25F wind chills. When it warms to above 0 degrees it snows and then it gets Arctic-cold again. It was a good week to have a solid meal plan and groceries in the house because I haven’t been anywhere except to work.

Our breakfast this morning was salvaged from a meeting at work yesterday. . .Oh yes I did! The muffins that had been out since 8 AM were looking like they were a heartbeat from the trash. This morning they were more appealing than plain Cheerios anyway.

We are headed out today on an all-family grocery shopping expedition and I’m almost giddy at the prospect of leaving the house. “Axel” is harnessing the oxen and with a little luck we will cross the river without drowning!

Back to work and back to school this week. I used my time off of work to get a meal plan rolling for the next two weeks. I don’t think I have ever been disciplined enough to do that. I usually am more prone to “wing-it” but between wintery weather and work, I knew I would be kicking myself if I didn’t buckle down and do this!

Sunday – Guinness Shepherd’s Pie – a new recipe for me. Usually I don’t have Sunday in my weekly menu plan but I wanted you to see this recipe!